The unprecedented tonnage of online content planned for the Beijing Olympics is now well-known: a record 2,200 hours of live competition on NBCOlympics.com and several thousand more hours of on-demand material. But perhaps even more interesting is how consumption patterns will materialize during the Games.

Even before the opening ceremonies, NBC executives expect sports such as equestrian, cycling and wrestling, which generally receive minimal fanfare compared with high-profile events such as swimming, track and basketball, to perform very well in the online settings. For the most part, NBC will not provide live online simulcasts of what it televises, artificially lowering the Web numbers for those top sports that dominate the network TV schedule. But even when factoring that in, expectations remain high for several of the niche sports.

“Some of the early returns we’ve seen already for equestrian content have been through the roof,” said Perkins Miller, NBC Sports & Olympics senior vice president of digital media. “We expect soccer and tennis to do very well, and wrestling, I think, is really going to open some people’s eyes. Track cycling, too.

“It’s, of course, hard to know exactly what’s going to take off, but with the structure we have, the stories of the Olympians wherever they are will be showcased.”

NBC’s online Olympics plan also is poised to give a sizable bump in prominence to Microsoft’s Silverlight video player. The relatively new software — challenging the more established Adobe Flash with a series of higher-end functions such as picture-in-picture views, widgets and overlays — has been used in the last year by MLB Advanced Media and by the NBA but is still seeking broader acceptance.

“[The Olympics] will definitely demonstrate a new bar for sports content providers that want to deliver their sporting events in new ways, provide viewers more ways to experience the content, more ways to participate in the content and build community,” said Rob Bennett, general manager of entertainment, sports and video for MSN.com, the Microsoft portal that, through a syndication deal with NBC Universal, plans to drive millions of additional people to NBCOlympics.com. “So, I do think that this endeavor will change the way that people watch sports online.”